Chapter 2 two

I have a habit of prowling our garden with a shotgun in the evening, watching for the crows.I've always hated these furtive, greedy, cunning birds.On the day mentioned above, I was out in the garden again, and having followed all the paths without finding anything (the crow recognized me and croaked intermittently from afar), I happened to approach the A low fence separated from the long and narrow garden attached to the small wing on the right.I kept my head down.Suddenly I heard a voice; I glanced through the fence and couldn't help being stunned...a puzzling scene appeared in front of me.

On the grass a few steps away from me, among the green raspberry bushes, stood a tall, graceful and graceful girl, wearing a pink dress with strips and a white turban on her head; Four young men surrounded her closely, and she took turns hitting their foreheads with small gray flowers, whose names I could not name, but which were familiar to the children: the shapes of these little flowers Like little bags, they shatter with a snap when they hit something hard. The young men were so willing to press their foreheads up—the girl's gestures (I only saw her in profile) were so charming, commanding, kind, mocking, and yet very lovely, Surprised and delighted, I almost cried out. I felt that as long as these beautiful fingers hit my forehead, I would give up everything in the world at once.My gun fell to the grass.I forgot everything and fixed my eyes on the slender figure, the neck and the beautiful hands, the somewhat tousled flaxen hair under the white kerchief, the half-closed intelligent eyes and eyelashes, and under the lashes. Those delicate cheeks...

"Young man, young man," suddenly someone beside me spoke up, "is it okay to stare at a strange young lady like this?" I couldn't help being shocked all over, and I was in a daze... There was a man with black hair cut short standing over the fence, very close to me, and he looked at me mockingly.At that moment the girl turned to me... I caught sight of large gray eyes in a lively, radiant face--the whole face shuddered and laughed, and the white teeth gleamed , the two eyebrows raised up in amusing... I blushed, picked up the shotgun from the ground, fled back to my room amidst loud but harmless laughter, and threw myself on the bed , covered his face with his hands.My heart was beating so hard; I was ashamed, but happy: I had never been so excited.

After resting for a while, I combed my hair, arranged my clothes, and went downstairs to drink tea.The image of the young girl flitted before my eyes, and my heart stopped beating wildly, but tightened somehow with delight. "What's the matter with you?" My father suddenly asked me. "Did you hit a crow?" I wanted to tell him everything, but my words froze, and I just smiled to myself.When I went to bed, propping myself up on one foot for some reason, I turned around two or three times, then put on pomade and lay down—slept like a dead man all night.I woke up a little before dawn, lifted my head a little, looked around merrily, and fell asleep again.